The Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe (CFA/ÖFZ) is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1978 by Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac. It is supported by the Austrian and French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is a sister organisation of the Institut Français des Relations Internationales, IFRI, based in Paris.
The original mission of the Austro-French Centre from Rapprochement in Europe was to associate France and Austrian in the development of economic relations between Western and Eastern Europe. After the fall or the Iron Curtain, the ÖFZ has expanded its field of activities and starting promoting the European integration of Central and Eastern European countries. After their accession to the EU in 2004, it identified new challenges, to which it has henceforth contributed, namely:
the future of Europe
the European integration of the Western Balkans
regional cooperation in the Eastern neighbourhood